Knit Wiz

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Garden Party Shawl WIP

I just wanted to show you how my version of Laura's Garden Party Shawl looks like so far. After completing the latest KP, I could concentrate on this one. After all those repeats on the border I finally have the pattern memorized. Well it's about time, I say.

This is only a quick picture in a semi pinned position, just to show you the details a bit. My batteries for the camera wouldn't let me take any more pictures right now. Of course Laura's pink shawl is great and I hope my gold one is not so bad either. It just doesn't seem to be as big as I wanted it to be, but I guess that's what you get for using mystery yarn. We'll see how far it stretches when it's all done. So, hopefully I'll get there by this weekend, because the yarn for my next KP test knit is on it's way and all I can say is, it's going to be lacy too. ...

Also I got caught in the latest sick wave, I guess. Between me working with a lot of people and the kids in school, there are many ways to catch a cold and I seem to be pretty good at it. The last two days were the sniffle and cough days, today it's the body ache day. Thank god for DayQuil, or I'd be totally down, but I do feel like I'm in a bubble. So long drives and shopping trips are definitely out of the question right now. Good thing I hit the mall before all this started. I scored a 100 % cashmere sweater at Old Navy for 75 % off. Now how great is that?

Sunday, January 27, 2008

Crisis averted

I am so unbelievably happy that my computer recovered from it's "cold". I have no idea what happened, but it would give me trouble with the internet explorer. My husband is blaming it on me interrupting a systems check up. Anyway, I thought I tried everything, but nothing would make my poor computer better. So I remembered the problem my neighbor had one day and I deleted the program completely, hoping it would recover, after rebooting. Nope, wrong answer. Now it was definitely kaputt. After discussions back and forth I had that little light bulb going on in my head, the blond roots were pushed out of the way and I remembered something about restoring the darn thing back to a better point in it's life. So it tried this and low and behold, it worked. My puter is up and running again, like it was two weeks ago.

I promise I will never interrupt a check up on my computer and I know now how to work a time warp. Am I great or what? Keri, I didn't mean to bug you, but luckily I could figure it out.

So, first things first. Thank you Tammy and Monika for the following award

Both of them awarded me with the "You make my Day" award and that makes me feel so great. I'm so glad people check into my blog once in a while to check up on my knitting, get teased with KP sneak peeks and see whatever else is going on in my life. Thank you so much. Maybe it's my writing style that makes some people laugh. Having English as a second language is not always easy and I still catch myself every once in a while trying to translate a German phrase into English word for word, which or course makes not only my husband crack up. So bare with me, whenever I do this.

Oh, yeah, the award. Here it goes: "Da Rules"

"Give the award to 10 people whose blogs bring you happiness and inspiration and make you feel happy about blogland. Let them know by posting a comment on their blog so they can pass it on. Beware you may get the award several times."

Sorry about slapping the links on there like this, but blogger won't let me link it right now.

Of course out of contest are Tammy and Monika. All of those bloggers have such interesting blogs, whether it's because of their projects or just because of what's going on in their life. I'm sure we all have a long list on our bloglines, but there are just those certain blogs that we just have to jump to first, to check them out, while others get skimmed. Admit it, we all do it. So, to all of you I just want to say, keep blogging, and even if you are not on the immediate list, you are still on my big list, I check in on you all the time and I love you all.

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Computer trouble once again

Like so many other bloggers, we are having problems with out computer once again and I'm working off of my old laptop computer. This stinks, but I hope you don't mind this short note. Don't know what happened, but I hope that between Norton and McAfee the mistake will be fixed and my lifeline to the knitting/blogging world will be restored.

KP is on the way to Washington and the Garden Party Shawl is growing a border. Just to let you know. Gotta get back to knitting, since it's hard for me to produce any pictures on this one. Or lets say, I don't want to go through the trouble of having to install software and all the good stuff I know so little about. I'm a user of this thing, that's it.

Later.

PS. I'll do the award thingy later, if you still think I'm worthy of it. :)

Monday, January 21, 2008

Progress

OK, so today we are going from Blaah day to Cleaning day. Don't ask me why, but I had that bug today, that I couldn't live in my house one more day without cleaning. I pulled out my trusty Bissell Flip It and went for it. Every time I changed the water, I had to show my kids how much they "helped" in messing up my house. Between them and my dog, who I ragged on too for having her nose and paws all over everything, my complaints seemed to be ignored, but it sure made ME feel better muttering, while I was cleaning. Now I feel somewhat better in my house and know I've accomplished something on this holiday (not like I only clean on holidays).

Another accomplishment is, that I'm almost done with the knitting part of my KP test knit. Two sleeves in three days. Woohoo. I have exactly 10 more rows before I cast off and then block the sleeves. Then I can continue on Laura's shawl, totally free of guilt. Well, kind of, there is still that dreaded baby blanket and I'm sure the baby won't stop growing for a while, so that's not helping either, but I have to set my priorities. I'm determent to finish both of those projects before the deadline and so far it's looking good for me. Cheer for me, please. Thank you. I'll give you another sneak peak at the KP, before I send it off this week and also try to get a decent shot of the progress of my shawl. But if you want the real deal, the finished project, then check out Laura's blog or go to Ravelry. She had the pattern registered there too.

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Blaahhh Day

I am making today an official Blahh Day. It's cold, it's rainy, it's gray, just blaahh. Typical Eeyore weather, if you understand. A day do crawl under the covers and wait for it to be over. I spent most of my day at work cleaning up my predecessors mess. Great start already. When I got home I had some coffee, some pain pills and my knitting and flopped on the couch for an hour long phone call with my sister. That made things somewhat better. My back is better now, I've done some lace knitting (I have the pattern down without needing a chart) and things seem to look a little brighter. Just don't look out the windows, that view might ruin everything again. So I declared tonight a YOYO night (You're On Your Own) and I'll go back to knitting. See you later, hopefully with pics, unless I get to unravel lace again! Now what was the deal with lifelines? Hmm.

Saturday, January 12, 2008

Not to worry

I haven't disappeared, just been busy. School started back up after Christmas break and the normal routine is settling in again, which at the same time means less knitting time for me. It's not that I haven't been knitting the last week, oh no, it's just with all those FOs I had during the holidays I ended up starting a couple new ones and, well I can only knit on one of them at a time and that makes it seem like no process at all. You know what I'm talking about.

Now I did get my yarn from Knit Picks and I'm happy to report that I'm almost done with the second part of it. I know, all those secretive hints, but I'll see if I can squeeze a little mystery picture in. It's coming along, but mainly stockinette can take it's toll and get a little, well, let's say monotonous at times.

That's were Laura'sGarden Party Shawl comes in. Did I mention that I'm doing that test knit for her? She just published some of her patterns and came up with a new one and called out for test knitters. Well, it's not that I didn't already have enough things going at once, but seeing her previous lace projects, I just couldn't resist and signed up for it. I'm knitting along with two other ladies and together we are testing, knitting and filing this pattern to perfection. Go check out her blog to see some progress pictures of hers. It's the bright pink one. Mine is going to be "gold" colored. I hope that's what you could call that color, but I guess that depends on the mood and the light. I'm behind the other two speed knitters, but thanks to them visiting TNNA I have a chance to catch up to them. After all, it's not a race, just friendly competition.

My little tam is hiding in my purse. It's my take along project and has been badly neglected the last couple of days. It falls into the same category as the KP, just in purl instead of knit.

Drive by entry

I don't really have time. Gotta run, because the mailman (gotta love him) brought me new yarn from Knit Picks for a new project. Can't tell you, as usual, what it is, but it's this yarn in watermelon and coral. So now I gotta go an swatch, so I can get started. You know how it is, if you have a pattern and have to wait for the yarn. It's just itching for you to get your hands on it.

The other thing I started it the Qiviuk Webs Tam from IK Holiday Issue 2007, page 33. I cast it on yesterday already, thinking I could go with a 2.5 mm needles and then use a 3mm instead of the recommended 2.25 and 2.75 (sorry, I have metric needles and I don't own those inbetween sizes). But that didn't work out. Way to loose and way to big. So I went to a 2mm and a 2.5 mm needles and even cast on the 112 stitches for the kids size instead of the 144 for the adult hat. Imagine that. After putting it on a cable needle I could pull it over my head without drowning in it and without it restricting any bloodflow to the brain either. :) I did end up going back to dpn (in ebony, hmmm), because the cables aren't long enough for a desent loop, but too long to just keep on knitting in a round. Sorry, but the piece is not picture worthy yet, but like I read on one comment about it on Ravelry, you really gotta love to purl on this one. Many say it looks better on the inside? We'll see when it starts taking shape.

Oh, and the baby blanket grows a couple of diamonds each day too, here and there.

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

First FO for 2008

This one is not a leftover from last year. This was started on January 1st and finished today, one day later. Can you tell I have too much time on my hands? I grabbed a yarn, checked which patterns I had in queue on Ravelry and went for it. This is Coronet from Knitty Winter 2003.

It's a nice little hat, but I had to make some adjustments to the pattern (again). I know, I'm bad with that. I didn't realize at first, that the braid on the hat is turned up. This actually worked to my advantage, because otherwise I would have run out of yarn. That's why it's facing the other direction. I just had to be different. I don't know what kind of yarn that is anyway. I grabbed an odd ball from the bin and started. No gauge test, just grabbing some needles that might work with it and off I went, making the braided edge. That was a lot of fun and before you know it, I had it done.

Now, unless I get the yarn for a new Knit Picks project tomorrow, I'll either have to find another quick project or work on the baby blanket. Yeah, that sounds like a good idea for today. I need to get this one done too sometime. After all, the kid is growing with everyday, which means, the blanket is going to have to be bigger too? Better get cracking then. :)

About Me

I'm a military wife, imported from Germany, but pretty much americanized over the years. I married a soldier and have two recruits. My knitting and my crafts keep me sane and blogging help me find new friends with same interests since knitters seem to be rare where I live.